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Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World

Commander / EDH

alfindeol


Maybeboard


Smashy, Smashy!

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In 2012, I attended my first pre-release in many, many years. I eagerly ripped into my Gruul pre-release box and right there, staring back at me was Borborygmos Enraged. I, of course, jammed it into my deck and proceeded to loose all my games. From that moment on, I knew I had to do right by the big dude and this deck was born.

At it's heart, this is a ramp deck. With an 8 mana commander, you just need to get a lot of help to keep up with faster decks. The deck runs as many lands as is reasonable (OK, maybe a few more) and the best ramp spells and creatures it can get it's mits on. Simply put, if you're playing one land a turn, you're doing it wrong. Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Oracle of Mul Daya, Exploration and Mina and Denn, Wildborn all give you a chance to get way a head of the curve. Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds and Abundance make sure you rarely run out of lands to actually play.

Putting all the lands in play is great, but winning is something entirely different. The deck's primary win condition resides in the commander zone. Borborygmos Enraged has a couple things go for him. First is that, as a 7 power commander, three hits is the end of the game for an opponent. That's not typically the route you'll take, but it is good to remember that he beats face with the best of them. You're more likely winning the game with his activated ability. Discarding a land (just one!) to lightning bolt a creature or player ends games very, very quickly. There are a couple important interactions that make this so. The first is to go qausi-infinte with Abundance and either Keen Sense or Snake Umbra . Even without Abundance, there's about a 50% chance you're drawing a land off of the auras, so sometimes that's just good enough. You can also use Life from the Loam in place of Abundance to simply keep putting three lands into hand as long as you have the mana. If you have a cycling land (like Slippery Karst you don't even need an aura). Then there are the... stranger options. Storm Cauldron lets you pick up all the lands you've already put in play to chuck them. Wheel of Fortune and Memory Jar let you cycle away what's left in your hand for more lands. And sometimes, Creeping Renaissance, naming lands, just puts enough into your hand to end things.

OK, sometimes things just don't go to plan and you'll need to win some other way. Luckily, the deck presents a LOT of those options. Omnath, Locus of Rage and Titania, Protector of Argoth can quickly generate armies for you and, sometimes, put your opponent in a scenario where they literally can't win as a board wipe will kill them in the process.

Because the deck is running so many lands, it's also running a few powerful combinations that can also end the game. Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage quickly make a 20/20, Kessig Wolf Run and Inkmoth Nexus can one shot an opponent with infect. Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle serves as a win condition on it's own although you can copy it with Stage and Vesuva. If you are lucky enough to stick a Crucible of Worlds, you can also simply cut off your opponents mana with Strip Mine, Wasteland, Dust Bowl (+ Drownyard Temple). You can even pull some of these off at instant speed with Crop Rotation. Sometimes though, you just need to stall for time and a Glacial Chasm will keep you around long enough to find a way to win.

Looking for more info and conversation about the deck? Before I moved the list here, this was the top Borborygmos Enraged deck on MTGSalvation! Check out 17 pages of discussion about the deck and years of updates and changes there!

Suggestions

Updates Add

Lots of news cards out there, but are any of them worthy of Borbor's attention?

Traverse the Outlands - This seems like the slam dunk add from the set, but not so fast... I already don't see the appeal of something like Boundless Realms and this is a more conditional version of the same thing. This deck simply doesn't have room for a 5 mana ramp spell that doesn't assemble one of our combos. Play this if you want, but it's too clunky for me.

Rampaging Ferocidon - I kind of like what's going on here. It comes down early, prevents players from gaining too much life and punishes them as the game goes on. It also shuts down some infinite combos and, generally, is an irritant. Like Harsh Mentor, it probably has a home in some versions of the deck.

Star of Extinction - Well this feels like it belongs here. It's not as efficient as Blasphemous Act or Chain Reaction, but it DOES hit Planeswalkers, blows up a land and does HILARIOUS things if you're running Repercussion.

Vance's Blasting Canyon - Well we'd play the crap out of the backside of this card. A mana sink that let's us pick off value creatures or dome folks every turn would be awesome. The question is do we want the front side of this card and can we flip it easily enough that we get what we want. I dislike that you can't play lands off of it, but I do think it's fairly easy for us to flip. Especially considering how frequently we're looping Life from the Loam. This will require testing.

Growing Rites of Itlimoc  Flip - Well we don't currently play Gaea's Cradle so I don't see any reason to run bad Cradle.

Conquerer's Galleon - You're going to hear this a lot... we'd LOVE to play the back side of this card, but, basically, only 3 creatures (and our commander) can crew this. I think we'd be... ambitious to try it.

Dowsing Dagger  Flip - Guess what? We'd LOVE to play the backside of this, but having to equip and connect with it likely makes it hard for us to play considering our creature count and their size.

Thaumatic Compass  Flip - This might be our flip card winner. Puts lands into hand, flipping this is trivial and we totally could use a Maze of Ith. In fact, I think this card my actually be better here than the Maze is...

I don't think either set is a slam dunk for us, but there are some really interestingly designed cards here. Lots of stuff we COULD play, but nothing that demands we make changes to the deck to accommodate. I'll certainly play around with a few of these and see what happens. What are you gonna test out?

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Date added 7 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

12 - 0 Mythic Rares

49 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

9 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.09
Tokens Ashaya, the Awoken World, Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Elemental 5/3 G, Elemental 5/5 RG, Emblem Nissa, Vital Force, Marit Lage, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders EDH, Commander/EDH, Borbo Misty, Interesting Commander Decks, On Deck, To Build or Not to Build, Cool Decks
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